Green Tea and Ice
by katriel1987
Summary: “Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn, didn’t leave nobody but the baby.” Hurt!Dean, frantic!Sam.


**title:** Green Tea and Ice  
**author:** katriel1987  
**summary:** _Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn, didn't leave nobody but the baby.  
_**rating:** strong T for very naughty language  
**word count:** 1470  
**notes:** Written for the spn_hurtcomfort h/c meme prompt: "Exhausted-to-the-point-of-collapse Dean."

* * *

Ice crunched beneath Dean's boots. He stumbled, caught himself on the sticky trunk of a pine tree. There was a crow cawing somewhere high above. When Dean looked up, the world did a crazy see-saw tilt, sitting him down hard on his ass in the snow.

He saw for a while, staring at the scuffed toes of his boots. His feet were cold. They must be, because he couldn't feel them. That was bad, right? The toe not feeling was bad.

Dean blinked, but it wasn't really a blink because his eyes stayed closed. He was gonna open them, he really was. In a minute. Just... just one minute.

_Go to sleep, baby,_ she whispered. Her breath was cool and smelled like green tea and mellow spices. She ran a gentle hand through his hair. She had graceful fingers, the nails clipped short.

_Go to sleep, Dean_. Her eyes were chestnut and she smelled safe.

And she was hungry. He could feel it.

His eyes snapped open and he scrambled up, staggered forward, fell. It was so cold. Canada? He thought he was in Canada.

(_Five days on the run, ditching one car after another, headed for wilderness. The first car he stole was a yellow VW Bug and it hurt, actually fucking hurt, to climb inside. But the best place to hide Dean Winchester from someone who knew him was inside a Volkswagon Beetle_.)

He couldn't feel his palms either, but his knee was aching where it had hit a rock. There was blood in the snow. It was his. Right? It had to be his.

He hadn't gone to sleep yet. If he had, he wouldn't still be here.

_Get up. You have to keep going_. The mental voice sounded like Dad, and Dean actually almost cried, because Dad would know what to do. How to fix something that couldn't even be remedied with a bullet to the head.

(_Do it, she whispered, as he stared at the gun. Do it. The instant you're gone, it'll only be me in here_.)

Dean got up. The trees thinned out ahead, and he saw a dull gray expanse of ice. A river, locked down for winter, silent. Waiting.

(_She didn't really want him to do it, but not because she was lying about the end result. She didn't want him to shoot himself because she wanted time to play. She found it almost as fun as what came after._

_So he put the gun down, and he ran._)

He looked down at the rock that had gashed his knee. Thought of loading his clothes with rocks, knocking a hole in the ice and sinking down down down where no one could ever find him.

_Oh, baby_. She had a gentle laugh, soft like the wind blowing through one of those chimes made of seashells. _You really think I couldn't get out from under a little ice?_

He kept moving forward, one drunken step at a time. Stopped at the river's edge and looked at the ice. Too thin to hold him. He'd fall through and drown, and then...

_All paths lead to the same destination, Dean_.

No. There had to be a way. He'd keep moving. He'd follow the river up, into the mountains, find a cave or a mine shaft. Trigger a cave-in and trap himself forever in the dark...

Not himself. _Her._ He'd be gone.

Dean started upstream, walking alongside the ice. Gravel shifted beneath his feet, covered by a thin frosting of snow. The air was calm but cold enough that it made his eyes water and his nose run.

His foot caught between two rocks and he went down again, everything numb now, nothing real. His breath made fog like the steam rolling off that river in south Texas one cold morning, when Sammy had pointed all sparkly-eyed and said _Look Dean the river's smoking_ and Dean had told him dragon fish lived in it and Sammy had maybe believed him a little.

He was so tired. Couldn't feel anything-at least not until he moved. A yell escaped through the bars of his teeth, then, because his ankle fucking _hurt_. Broken or badly sprained; either way he wasn't going anywhere.

_My kingdom for a cave-in,_ Dean thought. _A stick of dynamite. A nuke_.

_She has to have a body, and she can't use mine if it's vaporized_.

_You really are adorable_, she said. She twirled, ice-white hair flying. _But as much fun as this has been, the best part of all will be seeing his face in that last instant before he dies._

"You stupid fucking bitch," he said aloud. It scared him, how little fury he had left. "You won't get him."

_Oh, but I will. You know it. It's why you've been running._ When she smiled, her teeth glinted green, as if she'd been chewing on the tea leaves that scented her breath. _But Sammy's been following you, hasn't he?_

"Dean!" Sam shouted from the treeline.

Dean might have cried then, or at least made a sound like a gutted dog. There wasn't any mine shaft or any fucking nuke and Sam was here instead of a thousand miles away where he might have a chance.

Sam came across the snow at an unsteady run. He was pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. And he was angry.

"You stupid, _stupid_ idiot."

Dean said, "I was trying to save you."

"Maybe you could have trusted _me_ to save _you_ and spared us both a hell of a lot of trouble!"

"Nothing you can do," Dean said. She was laughing, but Sam couldn't hear.

"Yes, there is." Sam's jaw was set. He thought there was a way, but Dean couldn't believe it.

"No." His whisper died with the fog of his breath. He tilted his head back and looked up into a brilliant sky, slashed from horizon to horizon by a contrail. His vision blurred. You could get lost forever in a sky like that...

"Dean!" Sam was shaking him, fingers tangled in the front of his jacket. "Listen to me! I found a ritual. It will get rid of her, but you have to stay awake."

"I can't." His voice broke on a sob. "Jesus, Sammy, I can't."

"Yes, you _can_." For a moment Sam was five years old again, wide-eyed and believing in dragon fish, but Dean wasn't Superman. Hadn't ever been.

"She'll kill me if you fall asleep," Sam said, which was cheating. But it was also true, so Dean opened his eyes wide. Control was the key. As long as he was still in control, she couldn't take over.

Sam exhaled, pulled a sheaf of unevenly folded papers from his pocket. "Stay there," he said, and Dean wondered if he'd noticed the freaking _broken ankle_.

Kneeling, Sam started drawing in the snow with his finger, a complex net of interlocking lines that weaved around Dean. Sam chanted softly as he worked, glancing back to the crumpled pages so he wouldn't lose his place.

She laughed. _What does Sammy think he's doing, Dean?_

Sam's voice rose, stumbling a bit over the unfamiliar sounds but never slowing.

_What is he doing?_ She wasn't laughing anymore, and for the first time Dean dared hope that this might actually work. She was pissed. He could feel it.

_He cannot do this. No one knows how. No one!_

"Sam does," Dean said.

_No._ She knelt beside him, her mouth curling in a cruel smile. _No, my sweet. This ends now._ She brushed her fingers over his forehead and began to sing.

He hadn't thought of the lullaby since he was four years old—had forgotten it during the bloody years that followed. But when he heard it, memory flooded back. He was small again, warm in Mommy's lap before his world burned down around him.

_Go to sleep little baby..._

Dean could feel Mom's fingers in his hair, could smell apple pie and baby powder. It was the only time he ever remembered feeling safe.

_Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn, didn't leave nobody but the baby..._

"Mom," Dean whispered. He couldn't hear the chanting anymore, just his mother's voice. His head drooped forward and his eyes slid shut.

The song cut off in an earsplitting wail of anguished rage. Dean got his head up in time to see her lunge for him, fingers twisted like the thin branches of a dead tree. She vanished before she could reach him.

Sam stood outside the finished circle, brushing snow off his hands. He was shaking, but his voice was steady when he said, "She's gone. It's OK."

Dean stared up at his brother, at the blue sky behind him. "I promise," Sam said, and Dean remembered what it was like to feel safe.

He closed his eyes.

* * *

**:: end ::**


End file.
